


Inklings

by taichara



Category: Gundam 00P
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:10:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5491685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do with old memories on faded paper?  ... To say nothing of naughtiness on paper.  </p>
<p>Oh dear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inklings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalloway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/gifts).



"You know, perhaps I should scan some of these ... only temporarily, you understand, just so I could make a few edits without wearing through the pages ..."

One of the better things about downtime was the opportunity to indulge in one's hobbies; something that was --almost -- subtlely encouraged on Krung Thep, even. Small hobbies kept CB personnel happily occupied, and occupied personnel were less likely to find themselves bored enough to become a security leak one way or another.

Chall had no intention of being placed on Veda's list of 'leaks', thank you very much.

_I can't give up my life that easily yet, and it wouldn't be good for Grave to deal with the situation either ..._

... That was enough of that; her eyes were starting to mist over. With a stealthy swipe at her face (nothing to see here, move along), she returned to her very important task of sorting through the piles and piles of plastic folders heaped up on her desk. She'd managed to squirrel away a lot of art over the years; more than she'd remembered saving, even. It was a little amazing, and maybe -- as she caught a glimpse of a particular set of pages sporting Ian and Joyce -- just maybe a _liiittle_ embarrassing.

Maybe. But not really.

There were a lot of pages in those folders that featured Ruido and Marlene as well, and _those_ brought the mist back and then some. Those sheets were starting to look their age, besides, getting that soft sort of look old and well-loved papers did no matter how much one took care of them.

There was very nearly zero visual records of the two left in Veda's systems, or at least where she could reach them. Someone with a higher clearance than hers might find the situation different, of course --

Tweaking a page free from its folder, Chall held it up and studied it for a moment. Not _too_ bad, even if the composition could have used some tightening up ... but it was starting to fade. Just a tiny little bit, but enough to notice. She sighed, and winced.

"Never mind editing -- I should scan these in so I can make copies before the originals are lost. I don't think ..."

_[I would like to see those better, as well, Chall, if you do scan them ...?]_

"Oh, my meandering didn't make you wander off after all --"

The comment was only half-kidding, but Chall's smile was genuine nonetheless. Meister 874 gazed back at her from the wall-screen, half-hitching a small shrug; Chall's sharp eye caught the inkling of wistfulness in 874's carefully schooled expression, and her decision was made as easily as that.

_Really, I should have thought of her before now. Well, I'll make up for the lost opportunity then._

"Why don't we make an afternoon of it? I'll scan the entire collection -- if you could help with the resolution settings, I'd very much appreciate it -- and once we've finished with what we both want to do, we'll just erase the uploaded copies of the files.

"What do you think?"

_[That would be ideal, Chall. If you take the scans to offline storage afterwards, then there should be no concerns about system usage or other such potential issues. I will prepare a scanning subroutine.]_

"Thank you, 874."

Briskly, she tucked the handful of pages that were wandering across her desk back into their home folders and began to stack the bright plastic into one major pile. The one wrinkle was the need to leave her quarters with the pages ... but there should be no one in the East Ring meeting room right now --

-*-

And a lovely free afternoon was promptly had.

Despite a _tiny_ twinge of trepidation, Chall made good on her word and scanned in her entire hoard of pages to date -- even the most recent ones, and even the somewhat ... salacious ones. To put it politely. Meister 874 never seemed ruffled by the contents of the some of the doujin stories, at least, and Chall was forever grateful for that little quirk, yes indeed.

By the time their impromptu little 'party' was over, they had shared laughter, and tears (real and virtual), and more laughter, and more than one exclamation of remembered embarrassment or Chall's sudden need to make revisions 'Now'. Revisions that would be more easily done than she'd expected, as 874 went beyond the call of art duty and 'located' a supply of erasible inks for the printers. One full set for a permanent record, one smaller pile for easy adjustment and tweaking, and three optical chips carefully tucked away in Chall's pocket, each carrying the entire collection burned into it.

It was a very, very lovely afternoon indeed. But duty called; 874 wiped the scans from the terminal, Chall gathered up her materials, and for the time being the pair went their separate ways.

-*-

_What a peculiar directive._

Not that Veda hadn't issued strange mission parameters before now. But investigating the contents of an archived upload? Why?

He'd sent the query to Veda, and received nothing back but a repetition of the directive plus a notation that the creation, then deletion, of so many images on the system was unusual, and considered suspect until the mirror was inspected. Any further directives would follow depending on the contents of the mirror archive.

Grave rubbed at his eyes behind his glasses and sighed. Very well, then. It sounded harmless enough. He triggered his access code and opened up the archive in question.

_I'm beginning to suspect that Veda is running out of means to keep me occupied._

_Well, then, let us see what we have here ..._

_..._

He blinked. And then blinked again. Rubbed at his eyes, shook his head -- hair swinging -- and looked again at the most recent files in the archive. And then a third time.

A strangled chuckle escaped before he locked it down.

Those were ... _interesting_ files, some of them, oh yes --

But harmless. Surely. Nothing to worry about here, not at all. Not even a smidgen.

He thought of Hixar's potential for mayhem if he saw what was laid out before his own eyes, and more muffled mirthful noises escaped. No, no, it was a bad idea, put it away -- 

The older-flagged files, now ... those, those were a different case altogether. By the letter of Veda's law, some of the contents were not supposed to be available; but the _letter_ of the law also stipulated 'photographic evidence'.

Which this archive clearly was not. 

Grave made his decision quickly and with a clear (if all too amused) conscience.

_[The archive in question is a mirror of personal drawings belonging to Celestial Being personnel. Access tags indicate the creation of the image files, printing to hard copy, and deletion had been one continuous process. It is harmless.]_

_[ACKNOWLEDGED AND UNDERSTOOD. DELETION IN PROGRESS.]_

... And that was that. Grave sagged in his chair, limp and laughing. 

Who said there were no surprises left in his line of work?


End file.
